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Sunday, 12 February 2012

Over the past few weeks I've been working on a very different project than usual. A little while ago I convinced my husband to watch some of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes with me and since then he's turned into a bigger MLP fan than I am. I'm not a very big fan to tell the truth, I just think the ponies are cute and entertaining if you want something cheerful and simple to watch. My husband watches it for the same reasons, but he seems to like it more. Anyway, we've seen some of the MLP dolls and my husband's been pretty disappointed by the overall look of the Rainbow Dash toy.

This:

Doesn't really look like this:

Hasbro's toy has a milder, sweeter look to it, more suited to a pretty princess and the Rainbow Dash of the series is a rough, high flying tomboy.

I decided that I would create a more accurate looking Rainbow Dash and surprise my husband with it for Valentine's. We don't really celebrate Valentine's, I'm just using it as an excuse to give him a present. :p

I suck at styling doll hair so I decided to yank out all of my Rainbow Dash's hair and give her a molded hair piece instead. I found some awesome molded hair kits from OtakuSquirrel on deviant art and I was tempted to order one. I decided to try my had at making one of my own and I used his WIP pictures a lot for reference. I think that OtakuSquirrel's hair mods are a lot better than mine, but I'm pleased with how the hair turned out in the end.

WIP picture.

I molded the hair out of some beige clay I had lying around (couldn't find my non-Fimo Soft white clay). I didn't want to risk melting the pony in the oven so I boiled the pony's head with the hair on it. I baked the hairpiece in the oven after it had hardened in the boiling water.

Over the next couple of weeks I sanded and painted the pony while my husband was asleep. He goes to bed earlier than I do because he has to get up for work really early in the morning. I redid the face as well as painted another cutie mark on her left flank (what's up with Hasbro giving ponies a cutie mark only on one side now?). I had a heart attack moment when I was halfway through painting the cutie mark because it was the WRONG WAY AROUND. I then discovered that the mark I had been painting was in fact the right way around according to the show, and that the default mark on the toy was actually the one that was the wrong way around...

I think the grin kinda makes her look evil. Not entirely satisfied, but it'll do.The carved lines are so wonky. That's what I get for using a piece of wire to do the grooves instead of a proper tool. All that's left to do now is to touch up those white spots and glue all the pieces together. I'm uncertain of what to use, super glue? A hot glue gun? And I'll also need to keep my mouth shut till Valentine's. I've been so close to spilling the beans several times now! I'm sure my husband suspects something from all the Rainbow Dash pictures on my computer and all that talk about a secret project that I'm working on but won't show him. He commented last night that he thought I was a bigger pony fan than him because of all the pony stuff I'd been looking at. It's research! But those pony toys are starting to look really cute and ripe for customising...